The 2019–20 CAF Confederation Cup group stage started on 1 December 2019 and ended on 2 February 2020.[1] A total of 16 teams competed in the group stage to decide the eight places in the knockout stage of the 2019–20 CAF Confederation Cup.[2]
The draw for the group stage was held on 12 November 2019, 12:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[3][4] The 16 teams, all winners of the play-off round of qualifying, were drawn into four groups of four.
The teams were seeded by their performances in the CAF competitions for the previous five seasons (CAF 5-year ranking points shown in parentheses). Each group contained one team from Pot 1, one team from Pot 2 and two teams from Pot 3, and each team was drawn into one of the positions in their group.
In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order (Regulations III. 20 & 21):[2]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Away goals scored in all group matches;
Drawing of lots.
Schedule
The schedule of each matchday is as follows. Effective from the Confederation Cup group stage, matches are played on Sundays. Kick-off times are fixed at 13:00, 16:00 and 19:00 GMT.
Note: Positions for scheduling do not use the seeding pots, e.g. Team 1 is not necessarily the team from Pot 1 in the draw.[5]
